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What do some of your guys do for those of you who are visually impaired? Photocopy it larger, use a tablet screen? Maybe some ideas will help out P*D.

I'm not visually impaired, just old I have prescription glasses that I got just for piano, one of those LED lights that clamps on the music desk, and a floor lamp that shines over my shoulder. So it's strong light and special glasses for me.

The Cliburn competition starts this week, and one of the competitors (Alexey Chernov from Russia) is playing three of the Lyric Pieces: Opus 12/2, 38/7, and 47/1. All waltzes. All fairly easy, at least for the Cliburn competition. There was quite a bit of discussion and some heated arguments over on the piano forum about the wisdom of this programming choice. It's in the Cliburn competition thread on the piano forum if you want to wade through it. They do tend to get excited over there, not like the laid-back ABF!

The Cliburn competition starts this week, and one of the competitors (Alexey Chernov from Russia) is playing three of the Lyric Pieces: Opus 12/2, 38/7, and 47/1. All waltzes. All fairly easy, at least for the Cliburn competition. There was quite a bit of discussion and some heated arguments over on the piano forum about the wisdom of this programming choice. It's in the Cliburn competition thread on the piano forum if you want to wade through it. They do tend to get excited over there, not like the laid-back ABF!

Sam

Please say we don't have to play Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit to qualify for the Grieg recital?!

My 65/1 From Early Years is coming along alright. The broken octaves are becoming much smoother, but I still have to play them way slower than I'd like to be accurate. The impressionist-sounding 16th note patterns that happen at the end of both A sections is actually easier than I thought it would be, but I have to count to make sure I don't do too few or too many. Still ned to do quite a bit of tweaking, but I was hoping to have this memorized learned before the end of June so I can record it then - we'll see!

I'm also doing 71/5 unofficially in case there aren't any takers. This one has some crazy octave leaps, but it's getting there - I really need to work on the transition from the pattern in the higher octave to the repeat in the lower octave. I actually have to shift my body weight down (leaning toward the left) in order to make this transition, but it's not quite coordinated yet.

It is interesting to see which pieces have been chosen so far, and which are still open. Most Norwegians with interest in classical music know some of the Lyric Pieces, but many of them are rarely played.

Quite a few of the taken pieces belong within the group of less frequently played pieces, while some of the popular ones are still open. The pieces I'm most surprised of being left open are:

Op.12/6 "Norsk"Op.12/7 "Albumblad" (A very nice, not too difficult piece)Op.43/2 "Ensom vandrer" (Technically not hard and very characteristic Grieg)Op.43/6 "Til våren" (One of the most frequently played pieces, not exeedingly difficult)Op.68/3 "For dine føtter" (Very beautiful composition. Large hands and good pedalling is required for this piece)Op.71/1 "Det var en gang" (Composed around a Sweedish and a Norwegian melody. Not more than moderatley hard)

Like Morodiene I have also looked a bit at 71/5 "Halling". However, I know that I'm going to be busy with many other things this summer, and I struggle with the octave leaps. So I'm not going to claim it.

I have memorised most of 54/2, which was surprisingly easy as much of it is serial work, there are just a couple of transitions left and I don't have the facility in my left hand when the main figure transfers from the right in MM17, 21 and 45-60. There are still a lot of places needing HS work for the accacc.'s and all the chord leaps but I'm very pleased with progress considering the time gone and time remaining.

Most of my attention so far has been on M1-16 HT and M27-37 HS (working the weaker fingers with some iffy stretches) and the tempo has risen quite nicely in the former without my having to think about it. I'm not yet at the stage where I've to add metronome to prevent going too fast too soon but I'm getting there.

My 'unofficial' piece is Op. 38/1 and the problems there are two against three within the hand and keeping the voices separate. M51-66 are looking awkward for memorising but again I'm well ahead of schedule on this piece. I worked M1-16 in 4 bar sections and I already have them joined together as one unit. It's repeated una corda so I'm effectively up to M32 and about half tempo now.

I'm dropping them next week while I work on M33-50, which is easy enough to play from the score, then it's on to the final 20 which will be easy enough to play but might be awkward to memorise.

I'll be taking more weeks off from these pieces than I was able to with the Mendelssohn (where I started quite late due to memorising the music before I went to the piano) - so better gestation and assimilation. Here I'm in more familiar territory and it's all looking good so far.

When I stop playing at the piano I try to continue away from it. I keep them up at weekends but work different groups Mon-Fri. When I get back to a piece I've often improved. If I keep at it I don't notice the improvement and get frustrated or introduce mistakes from speeding up too soon.

If I stop mental play as well I may have to re-memorise when I get back - this makes the memory stronger and shows me where the memory weaknesses are that I have to shore up.

I try to avoid pieces above my pay grade so that most of the work I do is memorising with just a little technical effort. It's nice to have a challenge but it doesn't help if you need so much time to make it sound as good as the idea in the mind.

Seems like it's status time? I've memorized Opus 12 No 5 (Popular Melody) which was never my intention. I thought it was simple enough that I could just read it. But the structure is exceedingly simple: A-B-A-B-A; with just very minor differences between the initial theme and the subsequent versions. So it ended up memorized anyway.

I played it for my teacher the other week and she had some great suggestions which I'm incorporating. Molto legato on the melodic line - she found the pedal indications strange but they appear to be original. Pedal off on the second beat in each measure (it's in 3/4). I must admit I'm going half pedal for a lot more than that!

I think the hardest thing is going to be polishing. It is a simple piece which sets the bar very high for making it shine.

I've got the first part pretty well down pat (which means I have the ending down pat too as it is the same).

The middle part I've just barely started on. There aren't very many notes, but the combinations and hand positions and speed are going to take a LOT of work for me. Work is too hectic and stressful right now to add piano stress so I'm just going to work on the easier parts for now and save the trickier bits for mid-June, July.

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

I can play it through at half tempo with the score and my notes in front of me. Now I especially need to practice the final chord sequence and the dynamics of the whole piece (which goes from ppp to ff sforzando!). I've listened to Richter play this piece and I understood a couple more things about it.

I also intend to record most of my practice sessions from now on, so I can hopefully defeat the red dot syndrome.

Oh, and I will use the metronome most of the time I think, since there is a super steady bass with just one slight ritardando at some point.

Edited by sinophilia (05/24/1302:20 PM)

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Diana & Wally - Yamaha W110BWMartha Argerich... is an incarnation of the artistic metaphor of the "eternal feminine" that draws us upward. (Sergio Sablich)

I've pretty much got Op 71 no 7, Remembrances where I want it. It's not memorized yet. And I don't really expect it to be memorized when I play it June 5th in recital. I was lucky and got to pick relatively early on since I already had the music. However, these pieces may look fairly easy, but they are not easy!! There is much technique needed and a deep musical understanding of what is going on to play them well.

Next up will be getting a recording of it. I have one done. But I made it before I had learned to relax my hand so I could play the inner accompaniment softly. This took some doing to learn. But, I think I've got it now. Definitely a piece worth learning. Turns out it has been a good thing to be working on the Chopin a minor waltz at the same time.

I have a long way to go! This piece is tricky with all the accidentals. There are 5 sharps in the key signature: F, C, D, G and A. But then Grieg keeps switching it up through the whole piece, adding sharps or naturals here and there and everywhere. It's so beautiful but a brain strain! Today I played it all the way through for the first time (just to try). Took me 15 min! :P Mostly I've been going through each section, trying to figure out fingering.

I too have a long way to go. It's a bit more difficult than I thought, a challenge to finger independence. I've got my teacher on board. I've done the fingering. The playing part is still in the early stages. I could post a current audio (chock full of mistakes). I was a bit slow ramping up---I'm working on too many pieces at once---but am fully committed to this.

I think if I could concentrate on the piece it would only take a few weeks to get it under the fingers, but life is .... well, life, and setting aside a lot of time is not easy. And in any case, I do better if I can keep coming back to something over time. I learn it better that way.

....

OK, my son just sat down and sightread through the silly piece. He had it pretty much up to speed on the third run-through.

I think if I could concentrate on the piece it would only take a few weeks to get it under the fingers, but life is .... well, life, and setting aside a lot of time is not easy. And in any case, I do better if I can keep coming back to something over time. I learn it better that way.

....

OK, my son just sat down and sightread through the silly piece. He had it pretty much up to speed on the third run-through.

Arrrrrgh.

Auch! But why don't you ask him to write his fingering for a reference. It would save your time.

I tried Puck. Not bad. The patterns are very logically laid out. My fingering works. I won't start this until August. The Summer xxxx bag song (Summer's Eve) is beautiful, short and sweet. I just read through and put fingerings. I will wait to start this until one month before.

Auch! But why don't you ask him to write his fingering for a reference. It would save your time.

The fingerings aren't really much of an issue in that little piece. It fits pretty naturally to the hand, and the edition (Schirmer) has reasonable fingerings already marked. I was just annoyed (hah!) at the difference in our technical skill levels ...

I think I’m getting on ok with 57,1. With the recital so far off I haven’t done much more than noodle with various bits of the piece so some of the difficulties may not become fully apparent until I try and play it as a whole. Some evident problems arising from having a very ordinary span, particularly the little triplet octave 3rds jump in bar 4 – that’ll need an element of luck. Also the long chord build towards the end of the A theme which will need some note removal and/or thumb-on-two-notes – fortunately it’s not fast. There’s an arpeggio which might bring on my arthritis.

I'm undecided about Grieg’s modulations – they ‘work’ a lot of the time, often with a tiny kernel of an idea, usually producing a strong effect and yet because he does it so much they seem, sometimes, to be a device rather than an inspiration. The key change in some modern pop has always been effective, giving the song a certain kind of lift, but I never met a writer who didn’t admit it was a cheap trick. I certainly wouldn’t accuse Grieg of that - he at least does it with finesse and some of his music is sublime.

I have memorised this piece already, because I probably won't be able to play over the summerholiday as I am going home and there is no piano to play on! I would really like to finish this piece, but it's much harder then it looks. I am having trouble getting the trills in the left hand playing with the right. My teacher meant it would take me two months to play the trills even and fast. But I don't have two months!!

Second choice op 62 no 1

This piece is as hard as my first choice. I have also memorised it, but the jumps in the right hand are quite hard. At the same time it should be played light and leggerio. I hope that before the holidays, I am ready to record them both.

Edited by niluh01 (05/26/1305:26 AM)

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Life's tradegy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. - Benjamin Franklin